That Bobcat S185 skid-steer loader weighs 6220 lbs. How much does that double-axle trailer weigh? 1000? Add a full tank of diesel and hydraulic fluid, and lets call it 7500 lbs (3400 kg) total. A few years back, when I was fixing up my little fleet of moved-in houses, I rented it several times and pulled it behind my 1/2 ton F-100 with with its 129hp 240 six, three-speed transmission (with no granny low), and the same little drum brakes as a ’66 Ford Galaxie sedan. Never mind the oil-fouled clutch. It was a serious stretch, and required the utmost concentration and advance planning; in other words, I was scared shitless highly alert, but I kept doing it anyway. My biggest concern was a stop sign or light on an uphill grade, no matter how slight, since I had no low first gear. Brakes? I kept an old boat anchor in the cab ready to toss out the window. Let’s just say I picked my route very carefully.

So when I needed it again yesterday (as well as a backhoe the day before), I realized I also needed a dump truck. Good thing, because they’re getting wise to me.

In the good old days, as long as you had a “full size” pickup with a 2″ ball, they’d let you hook up pretty much anything in the yard, even with my lightweight (3300 lb) Ford. BTW, that’s the same as the smallest new Toyota Tacoma (regular cab, short bed, four cylinder, 2 WD). “You sure you’re going to be able to pull that thing?” “Oh sure; do it all the time”.

Anyway, as I went in the office to pick up the Bobcat, I notice a prominent sign: Dual axle trailers to be used only with 3/4 ton or larger trucks. Busted, or would have been, had it not been for the husky big Dodge 5500 3-yard dump truck I rented elsewhere.

What a difference! The Dodge and its tower of torque Cummins made child’s play out of the Bobcat. As well as some seriously healthy (over)loads of excavation dirt to haul off. The Dodge was sitting down on its overload springs, but pulled like a freight train. And the brakes!

Sure enough, on the way back to the rental yard on a 40 mph arterial, a big truck and trailer hit its brakes, locking the trailer brakes in a cloud of burnt rubber. I had a moment of sheer panic, unlike the Dodge, which just came to an undramatic quick stop with the Bobcat with gobs of room to spare. Suddenly it hit me: that never happened to me in the Ford, because I had been lucky. I’m not counting on that anymore.

It’s two things – the weight of the towed vs. the tower, and the brakes. In a perfect world, the trailer brakes are all adjusted and working properly. In the real world, this is seldom the case so the towing vehicle had better be able to make up the difference. Even with perfect trailer brakes, the brake controller and how it is set up is critical (braking bias and so on) as well.

As Paul correctly pointed out, it’s the things that can go wrong in front of you that will trigger potential disaster.

I had a 3/4 Ton Chevy 4×4 (with the wider 1-ton drums in the rear) that I haved used to pull my car dolly as well as my brother’s double-axle flatbed, and more than once I have been really scared that I was about to lose it. When you start oscillating side-to-side towing 6K going highway speeds, yikes!

I kept repeating the line from the 1953 Lucy/Desi movie “The Long Long Trailer” (watch it if you haven’t seen it – it’s a hoot): “Trailer brakes first, trailer brakes first!”

It’s wisdom, Paul – I think it’s partly due to realizing one’s mortality and how easily and suddenly it can occur, and the ever-increasing desire as one gets older to stave it off (imaging the local headline with your name in it regarding the deadly accident seems to work for me – “hmmm, no way I want to go out like that!”).

Agreed. It’s excessive. Most full sized trucks are rated at 7000 lbs these days. My F-150 with the max trailer tow package and Ecoboost is rated for over 11,000. Not that I would want to try it. I regularly tow over 6,000 lbs at highway speed with no effort or drama, though.

The stability-control computers take care of a lot of the trailer sway and control issues as well. The only time I experienced a bit of sway was going 65 mph with my 29′ trailer hooked up and the tail end of a tropical storm blowing through. I bought a $75 sway control bar and haven’t had a problem since.

The brakes are quite good on modern trailers too. I know mine can stop the truck if I don’t have them set properly.

Let’s just say there are 1/2 ton trucks and 1/2 ton trucks. What’s the empty weight of a new F-150? And it’s been engineered to tow those kind of weights. For that matter, what’s the load capacity? I’m sure it’s at or above of what an old F-250 was rated for. If I had one, I’d argue that it was capabale (and rated) for that load.

Exactly. My Brother-In-Law just bought a new F150 Ecoboost. The load ratings of the OEM tires are close (and I think over) the ratings of the LR-E tires that I had on my 3/4T pickup. It is an amazingly capable vehicle that has more in common with a 3/4-ton pickup from 20 years ago (in terms of load capacity, not driving dynamics/comfort), than it does the 1969 F100 that was in our family for almost 40 years (302, 15″ tires on skinny rims, drum brakes all around).

Against my better judgement, he let me drive it (I don’t like knowing how nice the new vehicles really are, preferring to try to be satisfied with my 10-20 year old ones).

Your story reminds me of renting a tow bar. When asked what I was towing, I told them an old Cadillac. The guy’s eyebrows arched up, and he asked what I would be towing it with. I answered “a big Olds.” I was glad he didn’t ask “how big of an Olds” because I might have had to tell him that I planned on towing a 5,000 pound Cadillac with a 3800 pound Cutlass Supreme. But what the hell – it was the 70s and why would anybody ask more questions of this 18 year old kid who wants a tow bar.

After getting my tow bar, I came to know the excitement of which you speak.

About 1982 I flat towed a 1974 BMW 2002 behind a 1978 VW Dasher from Lafayette, Indiana to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Went fabulously until some dude decided he wanted to be in front of me in my toll booth line. In Chicago. On the Tri-State. In afternoon rush hour. I somehow managed to stop the train before sideswiping a toll booth, but my underwear did not survive the incident.

Regarding having the right tool for the job, I heard a good rule of thumb once: If you like the idea of a pickup, buy a half-ton; If you have a use for a pickup, buy a 3/4 ton; If you need a pickup, buy a 1-ton.

> What’s funny is how many people seem to need to tow a Bobcat every day to and from their office jobs.

Is that really necessary? There’s a collective cheer here when someone finds a bloated 70’s Brougham-mobile that’s still a daily driver. Put a big cargo box on the back and suddenly the driver is a villain if it’s not loaded with gravel.

I cheer when any old car is running and being used, even if it looks like a monstrosity to me, because they are rare, and part of our cultural history. A few thousand old cars running around have nil effect on our consumption of oil or the state of our atmosphere. Naderite purists who can’t or won’t see that distinction make me crazy and sad.

Millions of people drive around in huge trucks and SUVs that rarely if ever carry more than a few hundred pounds of people and groceries. Those choices have effects which affect us all.

That discussion doesn’t belong here. It’s hard to draw the line between a little remark and a political statement. Plus I’m quick to run off at the mouth, especially in the autumn of years divisible by 4, sorry. I’d hate to kickoff a flame war.

principaldan

Posted October 12, 2012 at 7:18 PM

I cheer when any old car is running and being used…

Me too, I don’t care if it is a 40+ year old Toyota, or Chevy, or Ford, or IH, or Studebaker, or AMC. Car, truck, wagon, utility, don’t care! Drive it, use it. We can’t save all of them so we might as well drive the one’s we got. 😛

BigOldChryslers

Posted October 13, 2012 at 6:14 PM

Sorry for being harsh, Mike. I used to be fairly ambivalent when someone would posit that people that uses a pickup to commute should buy another vehicle and leave the truck at home. (At some sites you pretty much expect such comments whenever there’s a pickup truck review.) I’ve run the numbers for my situation though, and it didn’t make economic sense, so now I get annoyed more easily at such blanket statements.

Two years ago, we bought a larger family vehicle to replace my wife’s Civic. It had been reliable and economical, and it was a stick so fairly fun to drive. I considered keeping it to drive to work, but in my case the fuel savings versus my Cummins didn’t even outweigh the other ownership costs… and that was for a vehicle that we already owned! It was a no-brainer: we sold the Civic and used the money to pay down some principal on our mortgage.

I don’t want to start a fight over this either. Just wanted to explain why I was quick to jump on your remark.

edgar

Posted December 7, 2015 at 1:47 PM

Hello,

Where did you get this picture of the pickup with the flames, cool truck, I’d like to see this truck, do you have an address for it online?
Thanks,

Regarding that panic stop in the Dodge 5500, you may have not been concentrating on the road as you would have been in the F-100. Go test drive any new 1/2 ton, then get back in your old ’66. You’r gonna say to yourself, “What a POS this thing is.”

Yes, and no. While modern trucks are certainly more competent, the build quality, thanks to cheap coachwork and trouble-prone electronics, will preclude you from seeing ANY of todays vehicles 46+years from now. Trust me. So really, what is the true POS?? I will take the ’66, thanks, just make it a 3/4 or 1 ton please!

In 1992 I bought a 19′ foot Regal boat. Trailer weight was around 5000#. Foolishly I took the boat dealer’s assertion that I would have no problem towing it with my 1990 Bronco II 5 speed. After a harrowing experience or 2 the first few times I towed it on local roads, I traded it in on a F-150 with a trailer rating of 5000#. As you get older and wiser, you learn that you are definately mortal. I still see compact pick ups towing boats that are way heavier than the trucks trailer tow ratings. Many of these trucks and boats are over turned in the I-10 median.

Having made hay deliveries of around 4.5 tons (a ton on the truck and the rest on a hay rack with no helper brakes), in both my old ’69 F-100 and the ’95 F-150 4×4 that succeeded it, I can echo Paul’s comment about ‘planning your trip’ carefully. The rack starts to oscillate at anything over about 25mph, and that’s not a load I’d care to have to pick up out of the ditch. I try to stick to back roads, and make my trips mid-afternoon if possible due to lighter traffic.

That said, while I miss my older truck a lot, I sure feel safer with the newer one.

I recently finished overhauling the front end of one of my Chryslers. I was towing it behind my truck (1994 RAM2500 Cummins) on my car dolly to a garage for a front-end alignment. On the way home, I almost lost the whole rig when the person in the RAV4 ahead of me decided at the last moment that they wanted to turn left at an intersection and did an emergency stop.

You can drive appropriately for the conditions and still get in an accident due to someone else’s poor judgement.

Yup. Which is why I prefer to make such towing runs when the traffic is lightest, and when the roads are perfectly dry. My car dolly doesn’t have brakes (yet – I may spend the $800 or so to add the surge brakes) so it can get dicey in a hurry. My last haul was a parts-car 2000 Odyssey, and I quickly figured out that it was too wide and heavy for my dolly.

American pickups are an absolute waste of fuel, all Japanese 4 cylinder diesel ute have this sort of tow capacity today but of course such vehicles are kept out of the US market The rule in most of OZ used to be the tow vehicle had to either out weigh the towed load or be capable of out weighing the towed load like an empty truck which in reality is lethal
My drivers licence says I can tow multiple trailers most people are only guessing they know what they are doing

Someone, unbeknownst to us, probably played that Russian Roulette game…and crapped out. And the insurance carrier probably laid down the law. Out of such comes whole law libraries of dumb rules

(my favorite kept me from renting a U-Haul with my Jeep YJ…because it had a canvas top. Full roll cage…but a canvas top. Had it a fiberglass laminated hardtop, the U-Haul flunkies would have rented to me cheerfully…and any Jeep owner knows a dropped kitten will take out that cockleshell top…)

but this one actually makes sense. An overloaded towing vehicle is a loaded gun in the baby’s crib. Just waiting to happen…

You’re getting wiser, too. It’s called “growing up” – and it happens to all of us at some point. When I was young and dumb and didn’t know my arse from a hole in the ground…I ran my beater cars with no insurance. Sometimes I ran then after having a few beers…like, maybe 14. Sometimes I ran the one that had no floorboards; where the side-sills seemed to be spreading wider with every bump in the road.

I did it. And I’m alive to talk about it, too. Didn’t even do any jail time for DWI.

That doesn’t mean I recommend ANY of that today. I know better. I know car crashes can hurt; and even if they don’t, they can cost. AND be a headache for YEARS.

Gawd luv ya, Paul. Another poster put it best: “The right tool for the job.” If you had a Fisher four-way snowplow for your pickup, you wouldn’t have used it in place of the skid-steer to push dirt around, would ya?

Ridiculous? Sure. But just an exaggeration of abuse of some other of your mechanical devices.

This summer I’m planning to travel back to the Buckey state and take my Dad’s 1967 Mustang off his hands. This means towing it on a trailer because I do not wish to subject a 50+ year old unrestored American icon to 2000 miles of travel to NM (after the engine, transmission, brakes, suspension, convertible top, and rubber seals have been gone over I plan to drive the heck out of it.)

So I went online and started looking at Uhaul. They’ll let you rent one of their pickups, but not with one of their trailers, instead you’ll need to rent one of their box trucks to tow a twin axle car hauler. As long as they’ll let me tow one of their trailers with my 10th generation F150 I’m perfectly willing to tow it the 2000 miles home.

I’ll echo Buzz on shipping it. It cost me $775 to ship a 79 Cherokee from NorCal to Chicago. Renting a truck/trailer and travel expenses would have easily exceeded that. Not to mention saving the stress of towing it back cross country.

I’ve had a glimpse of the problem while towing our tent trailer. (IIRC, it’s nominally 3000 pounds.) With the Ranger (4400 pounds) I really need the anti-sway bar and if the trailer brakes are out (had some corrosion problems in the connector) it got a little spooky on hills. Switch to the half-ton Silverado (5800 pounds–both tow vehicles as measured on the ODOT scales with nominal loads and overweight driver), and the antisway bar can stay at home. Never had problems with the brake controller, so I’m not sure how much trouble it would be without trailer brakes.

i heard U haul had a bad claim once, some dude burnt out the brakes coming down Coquihalla hwy with a rental trailer, he ran into and killed some poor soul near langley bc,
so after that u haul had been really meticulous about what u have for tow vehicle.
those u haul trailers have surge brakes, which means as long as your main brakes are working they will work. The push on the trailer tongue activates the brake master cyl on the trailer.
Electric brakes will work as long as your module send power to the brakes.
Even if all your brakes are gone it should stop the whole train.
Once I had a trailer made from the rear section of a datsun p/u I had a small load on it.
Going across a bridge the trailer start to swing too, I cant remember what i did, i got out of trouble none the least. But that was closed. Thought i may not make it across.
I do have a 10000 lbs GVW 16 ft trailer, 2 yrs ago some dude ran into her on the side, kind of hit & run. Our trailer had a small damage, i guess it was no fun for her, since it was hooked to my F350 only 6500 lbs and empty trailer probably 2,000 lbs.
kind of all shook up or shaken but not stir.